Customer Reviews

Siren Promised

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Beautiful in its honesty, the plot is raw and creative. Without sermon or judgment, the story reveals a naked, ugly picture of drug abuse and exile. Although there is a very intricate supernatural element to it, it is purely secondary. What you will remember, what will haunt you, is the desperation of Angie, Curtis, and Kaya, and to what lengths they will go to fill their emptiness. Although I should warn you, the intensity may be too much for those looking for a few hours of simple entertainment.

Watching a character fall from grace and then get back up has always made for compelling drama, and if that is what you're expecting here - put the book down. Although the players capture the pain and suffering of life and all of its complexities, they receive no simple answer. There are no rainbows here. What they do portray is the gritty truth, without bows or gift-wrapping. As they fight against their desperation and for their redemption, you can't help but care, even if you don't want to.

The atmosphere is abrasive and dense. The moment you open the book, the air around you begins to immediately attack your senses. When you move through the forest with Angie, you can almost smell the decay and filth. When Curtis investigates the Smith's house, you sense the weight surrounding it. It's all around you, and that stench, that smell, never leaves you. It's very power involving you in the story and placing you in their environment. And just when you think you can't handle any more, the pace pushes you through and past it. Although it's not a swift read, the speed is calculated and safe. With every aspect of the book being open to illusion, you will actually come to depend on the pace. It was perfect!

Unlike most collaborations, Clark and Johnson's styles blended well together; too well, in fact. To this very moment, I still can't determine when one took over and the other sat back. Interlacing between reality and the drug-infused, nightmares of Angie, the authors make you live through it, rather than just read about it. The power of Clark and Johnson working together is in their ability to blur the lines in the tale and touch you where it counts. By the time I was done reading I was wondering about the purpose in my own life; they left me with an emptiness I didn't even know existed.

Now normally I don't comment on the illustrations in books for the sheer fact that I know next-to-nothing about art, but the illustrations in this book require mention. Conveying what is going through the character's minds, the images bring to life what can only be imagined. They are beautiful! In fact, there is one picture in there that I am seriously considering framing and hanging on my wall.

I have just one word for you - DAMN!

Beautiful in its honesty, the plot is raw and creative. Without sermon or judgment, the story reveals a naked, ugly picture of drug abuse and exile. Although there is a very intricate supernatural element to it, it is purely secondary. What you will remember, what will haunt you, is the desperation of Angie, Curtis, and Kaya, and to what lengths they will go to fill their emptiness. Although I should warn you, the intensity may be too much for those looking for a few hours of simple entertainment.

Watching a character fall from grace and then get back up has always made for compelling drama, and if that is what you're expecting here - put the book down. Although the players capture the pain and suffering of life and all of its complexities, they receive no simple answer. There are no rainbows here. What they do portray is the gritty truth, without bows or gift-wrapping. As they fight against their desperation and for their redemption, you can't help but care, even if you don't want to.

The atmosphere is abrasive and dense. The moment you open the book, the air around you begins to immediately attack your senses. When you move through the forest with Angie, you can almost smell the decay and filth. When Curtis investigates the Smith's house, you sense the weight surrounding it. It's all around you, and that stench, that smell, never leaves you. It's very power involving you in the story and placing you in their environment. And just when you think you can't handle any more, the pace pushes you through and past it. Although it's not a swift read, the speed is calculated and safe. With every aspect of the book being open to illusion, you will actually come to depend on the pace. It was perfect!

Unlike most collaborations, Clark and Johnson's styles blended well together; too well, in fact. To this very moment, I still can't determine when one took over and the other sat back. Interlacing between reality and the drug-infused, nightmares of Angie, the authors make you live through it, rather than just read about it. The power of Clark and Johnson working together is in their ability to blur the lines in the tale and touch you where it counts. By the time I was done reading I was wondering about the purpose in my own life; they left me with an emptiness I didn't even know existed.

Now normally I don't comment on the illustrations in books for the sheer fact that I know next-to-nothing about art, but the illustrations in this book require mention. Conveying what is going through the character's minds, the images bring to life what can only be imagined. They are beautiful! In fact, there is one picture in there that I am seriously considering framing and hanging on my wall.

Angie is twenty-nine years old, and used up by addiction and abuse. Getting clean, she knows she must break away from her lifestyle and boyfriend/dealer Cypher so that she can reacquaint herself with her thirteen-year-old daughter Kaya. What Angie doesn't know is that Kaya, living with Angie's pill-addicted and abusive mother Colleen, is being stalked by neighbor Curtis Loew, who wants a new family.

Before Angie can leave for her old home, her friend Stacy talks her into attending a rave, "just to dance". But Cypher is there, waiting for Angie. He corners her, forces some bad LSD into her mouth and rapes her. Angie manages to escape, injuring Cypher in the process, only to stumble into the woods where the drugs render her senseless. In her fugue, Angie has visions of Kaya dying.

With the bad drugs still running rampant through her brain, Angie must get herself together and find the money to get home immediately. Her fear for Kaya's well-being overruns her fear of Cypher. And while Angie struggles to get closer to Kaya, so does 'Uncle Curtis'.

'Siren Promised' is a story of wretchedness and redemption. The horrors of Angie's past and her current drug fugue are not sugarcoated. The atmosphere is bleak and filled with disturbingly dark situations, the characters are unlikable at best, and yet you may still find yourself rooting for the character's lost innocence to bloom again. Kaya's existence with Colleen is so horrid that even 'Uncle Curtis' looks like a good parental figure to her. Angie's life has been so wasted its practically impossible to believe she can reverse it, and yet right up to the final horrific confrontation it is Angie who dares to continue clinging to her hope.

Also noteworthy are the darkly beautiful illustrations by Alan Clark, a talented cover artist whose works I have always admired. I only recently discovered Jeremy Robert Johnson, and while I don't consider 'Siren Promised' to be his best piece, I most definitely look forward to purchasing more of his books. Enjoy!

Recovering from addiction is not about peace. It is about war. It is about calling out obsessions and saying "it's either you or me". Siren Promised is about this showdown, about what it takes and what it takes out of a person. The book's protagonists are slaves to their obsessions and desires, deprived of the things it takes for them to be healthy, decent human beings. No excuses or apologies are made for these people and yet you cannot help but love and pity them as they prepare for the confrontations that will change their lives forever. A junkie and a pedophile are revealed as human, lonely and beautiful in their repugnance. Illustrations by Alan M. Clark complement Johnson's style perfectly and make this book into a must read. It's like if Cormac Mc Carthy wrote Diary of a Drug Fiend. With Siren Promised, Jeremy Johnson called addiction out into the street and fired a blazing pistol of a novel at it. I cannot recommend this enough.

Angie is a drug addict. Thanks to her sadistic, drug dealing boyfriend she's spent most of the last decade hooked on various narcotics and hallucinogens. She ran away from the (......) long enough to clean up her act so that she can get home to her daughter, Kaya. Angie dreams about her constantly. Unfortunately, the dreams always end in Kaya's death.

Angie's friend wants her to celebrate by attending a rave. Although afraid that this one last party may tempt her to slip back into drugs, she reluctantly agrees.

Big Mistake.

Angie gets separated from her friend and, while searching for her, runs into her ex. He's not happy with Angie. With no one to help her, he slips Angie some bad acid. After the drug kicks in, leaving her helpless, he rapes her. She manages to injure him in the groin and thus make her escape. She runs blindly into the forest trying to put as much distance between her and her ex as possible. She stumbles into a dark grotto where the forest comes alive in a rather sinister fashion. But Angie can't figure out if it's the acid or reality.

All that in chapter 1.

Meanwhile, Curtis Loew has moved in across the street from Angie's mother, Colleen, and Kaya. He grew up in a foster home, desperate to be part of a family. That burning need has gotten out of hand more that once, sending him packing under cover of darkness. But this time, he feels like he's finally found a family that he can be a part of. He searches genealogical websites to track down enough information about them to become "Uncle" Curtis.

Bloodymary is right. The book isn't for the squeamish. The characters suffer, though it isn't gratuitous. The authors don't take any delight in their characters' pain, having experienced some of it themselves. The characters are people who have very screwed up lives on account of very poor choices. Redemption is a long, hard road where every step along the way must be earned. Sugar coating it would be an insult to the reader.

The authors manage to perfectly mesh their styles, seemingly with little effort. Even if the book wasn't filled with Mr. Clark's haunting illustrations (which will make you long for the full color version), you wouldn't have any difficulty envisioning the world around the characters. You'll sweat as the mist from the dank forest coats Angie's skin. Your nose will scrunch up in disgust as Curtis offers you an olfactory tour of Colleen's house. And you'll swear your ears heard someone stepping on broken glass, trying to creep up behind Angie in The Courtyard.

Find out what "Siren Promised" and then be thankful that you haven't heard its call.

In my life I have read and watched many dark and terrible stories... stories of abuse... stories of addiction... stories of personal horror.
This book is all of those, and still managed to leave me with a sense of hope and redemption.
The authors make it clear from the get-go that they have suffered the worst depths of addiction, and that they aren't going to pull any punches with the material in the story, which focuses on two main characters: a drug addict, and a very lonely stalker.
I really don't want to speak of much that happens in the story, as I think it would misrepresent what the story really has to offer. Don't get me wrong, there are many terrible terrible things that happen, but the story to me is really much more about recovery, redemption, and rebirth.
As a former alcoholic and drug addict myself, it was very obvious to me that the authors were writing from personal experience, and not just keen observation. And it was further obvious that they had learned much from overcoming these experiences.
The story, by itself was very powerful, and left me happy with the resolution, but feeling a little battered.
This was quickly remedied by two short notes from the authors, describing both the manner in which the story was put together, and Jeremy Robert Johnson's personal reasons for writing it so darkly.
For me, this made the book a complete package, and really made it clear that it was a sort of redemption experience for the authors as well as the main characters. It helped give me positive closure to a dark story.
Highly recommended to those of you who know you can handle it.
And thanks to Jeremy Robert Johnson and Alan M. Clark for giving me another reminder why this period of my history remains in me not as who I am, but of how I became able to move towards the person I have always had the potential to be.

a gritty, hallucinatory trip through the world of drug-use/abuse, family, and murder. Siren Promised is a strange, beautiful novel that uses incredible language and amazing images to burn its way into your head and stay there for days after reading it. Maybe it'll never leave you, for all I know. But that's okay, because you don't really want it to leave you. You want it to grow inside you and teach you something.

I have never read a book that so completely blurs the lines between reality and hallucination, sanity and madness, love and hate, good and evil as does this one. This world is completely unfamiliar, yet scarily recognizable. You can tell the authors have really "been there" when it comes to the drugs described. The terror of acid, the helplessness of the day after. It is all here, and written in the lingo of the mind being ravaged by the chemicals. Anyone who is the least bit familiar with drug use or hang overs will find something in here to shake their familiarity loose, and give them an instant kick of "euphoric recall". That is, the sensation of being on a drug a long time after doing it, simply by remembering in great detail the effects of said drug.
It is as terrifying/exhilarating as a acid trip, and as gritty and uncontrollable as a brief flirtation with meth.

The horror of this book cannot be overstated. The villains are fully formed, their evil is real, thought out and intense. the evil crawls across the page like a garbage creature, its eyes broken eggshells and its head a tattered paper bag full of rotting food. It is like a long, drawn out scream whooshing up from the k-hole.

Of all the sick, bizarre, wonderful and powerful books I have read this year, this one--Siren Promised--this will be the one that haunts me.

I cannot recommend it highly enough.